Harry and Hermione watched as Natalie studied her map. It seemed like hours had passed before she looked up.
"I've got it figured," she said checking over her lists.
"Got what figured?" Harry asked sleepily, playing with a random jawbreaker on the ground.
"The plan. If we hit three stores we should be able to get all the ingredients by sun up. Then we'll be back here way before nine, which is when the Honeydukes opens. Shall we start? It's already 2:45."
"I'd like to look over the list first if you don't mind," said Hermione who looked as though she'd just woken up.
"Here," Natalie said, handing her the map and list as she rubbed her eyes from under her glasses.
Hermione's eye's darted across the page, her brow furrowed.
"This is amazing," she whispered. "This map of Diagon Alley shows everything! It even shows where everything is placed on the shelves..."
"My dad gave that to me on the same Christmas as when I got my invisibility cloak." Natalie said grabbing a handful of gummies from a frosted glass jar.
"Don't eat those! That's stealing!" Hermione said snapping out of her trance.
"We're about to rob some of the Alley's biggest stores, stealing some highly rare and expensive items and you're worried about of handful of gummies. I think you need to get your priorities in order," Natalie said popping three into her mouth and handing some to Harry.
"I just don't want to take any more than is necessary," Hermione replied softly.
"So is everyone ready?" Harry asked through a mouth full of gummies.
Hermione gulped and Natalie grinned.
"Sure am," she said.
Hermione nodded. "If my parents only knew..." she mumbled under her breath.
They walked back to the fireplace and took the Floo powder next to it.
"Now I only hope the stores have fireplaces," Natalie said a little less confidently.
"Wait- you don't even know?" Hermione asked shrilly.
"Not really. It's a risky business I guess."
"And what happens if they don't?" Harry asked worriedly.
"Er- I'm sure it's nothing bad-" Natalie said putting her hand in the Floo powder bag.
"So sure you'd bet your life on it? Because that's what you're doing right now," Hermione said flailing her arms wildly.
"Ok Hermione if you have such a problem with this why don't you just go back through the tunnel? I don't want to hear your nagging and yelping anymore," Natalie whispered looking her straight in the eye as if challenging her.
"I do not yelp," Hermione retorting, returning the stare.
They looked each other in the face, neither one daring to blink, when Harry got so tired he grabbed a handful of Floo powder and stepped into the fire place.
"Yolanda's Elements for the Advanced," he shouted, throwing the dust into the ashes.
"Harry no!" Hermione squealed, but a flash of green flame had already consumed him.
She shook her head the way a mother would after her son had disappointed her and took some powder.
"Yolanda's Elements for the Advanced," she said tiredly and she was gone in a poof of green.
Natalie was the only one left so she grabbed a few gummies and disappeared into the fire.
She reappeared to see Harry and Hermione stumbling around a dark room, lighting their wands.
When the room was illuminated completely they saw that they had come into a storage room.
"Well this is invigorating. Where's the door, do you suppose?" Hermione inquired impatiently.
"Over there," Harry said pointing his want to a discolored spot on the wall.
They walked over and uttered, "Alohamora," simultaneously.
The door swung, open squeaking loudly and revealing a darkened room with glowing objects that appeared to be floating.
The trio lit their wands and saw that the glowing jars were not floating but were placed on shelves that were invisible in the dark.
"The only thing we need here is rose petals and English dew," Natalie whispered.
"English dew? What, as opposed to French dew?" Harry snorted.
"I suppose...but anyway start searching. I doubt there'll be protective charms on any of the jars since those are pretty common ingredients," Natalie replied trailing off and searching the shelves.
"Ooo!" Hermione shrieked. "I found the rose petals!"
"Take 'em," Harry said, shrugging.
She lifted the jar and placed it in the pocket of her robe.
"Wow, this is somewhat exhilarating!" she said smiling.
"I told you," Natalie said, smirking.
The smile fled Hermione's face and she went back to her search.
Ten minutes passed, and she was sure she had searched the store in its entirety for the English dew when she heard a crash. She spun around with her hands up yelling "Don't shoot."
"Oops," Harry said, bending down to look at the broken jar.
"Er- found the English dew," he said, handing the label to Natalie.
She placed her hands on her hips and racked the shelves.
"Well there isn't any more... so we'll have to look for some at Potions Maxime," Natalie said heading for the door.
They reentered the storage room and grabbed some Floo powder.
"Potions Maxime!" Harry shouted, sending him hurtling into the fireplace in that particular store.
The other two followed after shortly.
"Well this is convenient," Hermione said brightly. "No storage room, we're in the middle of the store."
"Yes...convenient," Harry agreed. "What do we need here?"
Natalie laughed dryly and handed them each a long list.
"Get going," she said brightly.
They searched the shelves for what seemed like hours looking for rat eyes, crushed dragon eggshell and other things of that sort when everyone heard Hermione scream.
"What? What is it?" Harry asked, running to her side.
"That!" she shrieked pointing to a glowing jar filled with what looked like tentacles.
"Oh good! You found the sprite hair," Natalie said chucking the jar into the bag.
"How is that hair?" Hermione asked shakily.
Natalie shrugged. "Guess sprites have weird hair."
They searched around for a few more minutes, lacking only one ingredient: the English language. Supposedly there were ways to bottle up the essence of a language, and Potions Maxime had found it. It was a highly priced ingredient and extremely rare, almost beyond human reach, so of course it wouldn't be out on the shelves. They had to dig deeper into the store.
"Look at the map see if there's any hidden passageways, maybe a secret compartment where it would be," Hermione said.
"I know where it is, but there's a password you have to utter to get into it," Natalie said waving her hand dismissively.
"Let me guess... you for some odd and unbelievable way know the password," Hermione said rolling her eyes.
"Well my uncle used to own the store. He would make me help him and said that someday I was going to take over. So he gave me a piece of paper that has the password on it, but you have to know another password to get the password to come up on the password page," Natalie explained seriously.
"Yeah," said Harry sarcastically, "that made sense."
"You have to know a password to figure out the password Harry," Hermione re-explained.
Natalie bit her lip; she could practically hear the rusty wheels turning in Harry's head.
"Riiiiiiiiight..." he said at length. "So what's the password?"
"I can't tell you. If I tell you, something bad will happen to me, that's what my uncle said. So you have to guess," Natalie said.
"Why can't you just say it and we can get into the compartment where the language is stored?" Harry asked plainly.
"Because if I steal it everyone will know," she said nervously.
"How?" Hermione asked.
"Well it's kind of like that thing you did to Marietta in the 5th year, I can't really explain it."
"Oh. So we have to do your dirty work? I think someone will find out if we just go in and steal one of the rarest items in the wizarding world. I mean, you claim to be a professional thief but right now you're just being stupid! There has got to be some sort of protective charm on it, or else this whole blasted thing would be a joke!" Hermione shrieked, positively hysterical.
"Hermio-"
"No. Let me finish. I will take no further part in this crime, shelf stealing was bad enough, but this is mad! If it really is rare then there'll only be one or two containers of it and if that's the case it would be all over the news when we steal it. Plus, how're we even going to get this potion (if we succeed in making it) to Ron? How're we going to explain to Snape that he no longer needs to make the potion? This plan was utter lunacy and I can't even believe that I was stupid enough to go along with it!" she yelled, almost breaking glass.
Natalie and Harry just sat staring at her for a long time. She averted her eyes and almost wished she could take back what she just said.
"Ok," Harry said, extremely calm considering the situation. "What do you propose we do?"
Hermione took in a long, deep breath and sighed.
"I don't know," she finally replied.
"Do you just wanna go back to the castle? Not help Ron? Because if you do Natalie and I can figure out a way to handle Snape ourselves."
Hermione closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.
"No, that's not what I want. I guess...I guess I'll stay, but only if we find another way to obtain the language ingredient," she said warningly.
"How would we do that?" Natalie asked impatiently.
"I dunno, maybe we could buy it?" Hermione suggested quietly.
"Buy it? Buy it as in purchase it? Have you any idea how much it costs?" she replied laughing at the thought.
"Not really...but how expensive could it be?"
"Try 500 galleons, minimum! Where would we possibly get 500 galleons?"
Natalie's face was apprehensive at first, but then figured it out. She looked over at Harry along with Hermione.
"What?" he spouted gruffly.
"Er- we were just talking about where we would get 500 galleons Harry, erm, any ideas?" Hermione explained nervously.
Horror spread across his pale face.
"Me? You want me to buy it?" he asked incredulously.
"Well, only if you want to, you don't have to."
He sat there thinking what he'd done to deserve this for a long time.
Why should I pay 500 hundred galleons for a part of a potion that we're not even sure will turn out right? I mean, Snape's gonna do this anyway isn't he? It'll just take a little longer...but then I still have hundreds of thousands of galleons left in my account, 500 hundred isn't that much, right?
He was still deciding when Natalie begged for an answer.
"I dunno man, this is big," he answered shakily.
"We'll pay you back! I promise when I'm rich I'll pay you back! Oh and with interest!" Natalie cried, tugging on his sleeve.
"Why do you care so much? From what Ron tells me you don't even like him that much," Hermione asked suspiciously.
"Er- of course I like him. Maybe he just doesn't...know that," she answered awkwardly.
"Know what I think? I think you're just doing this for the thrill," Hermione said indignantly.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"I think it means Hermione doesn't like you so she's just rattling off all the faults she sees in you," Harry said, rolling his eyes.
"Hey! That is not true!"
"Oh, I think it is, don't listen to her Natalie. She's crazy."
Natalie nodded but didn't smile.
"So have you decided yet?" she asked tensely.
Harry sighed. "Yes, I have."
Hermione and Natalie were waiting on the edge of their seats, preparing for the worst. Harry said nothing.
"And...?" Hermione pressed eagerly.
He sighed again, this one with regret in advance for what he was going to say.
"And to Gringotts we go," he whispered, staring at the two overjoyed faces.